I apologise in advance that this blog entry will probably give you more of an insight than you wished for into the inner workings of my brain....
We've all had those naked dreams: the ones where one minute you're minding your own business, doing normal things, and the next minute you discover you're naked, in public. You desperately attempt to avoid eye-contact with the disapproving throng, cover your embarrassment with a newspaper or, worse, a business card, and make a carefully timed dash for somewhere more secluded.
Quite how running as fast as possible would make a naked person stand out less in a crowd than if they sauntered will never be answered. Maybe the idea has infiltrated our subconscious from seeing streakers at sporting events, where speed is of the essence to maximise effect and postpone the inevitable rugby tackle from some burly, heavily-clad police.
Anyway, we've all had those dreams and I am no exception. Except that last night once such dream took an unexpected turn: rather than being ridiculed and mortified, I found, after a few minutes of the usual panic, that I became a cult figure, rather like those naked hikers that keep getting arrested. I still got some verbal abuse, but more often than not I just heard people saying, “Hey look, there's the naked guy”. Viewers of the unbearably popular TV series Friends will be relieved to hear that the word 'ugly' did not feature in these exclamations, but I won't take that personally either way.
Then came the really interesting and, I have to say, quite inspired part of the dream. I decided to use my new-found notoriety to do some good in the world - “put something back” as people often call it. I decided to set up a “pedestrian travel to airports” service, where passengers convene at convenient, city centre locations like bus stations or libraries, and are then escorted on foot to the local airport. By a naked man. Naturally, there was a small charge for this service, but think of all those car journeys to airports that could be saved, and all those tonnes of carbon emissions!
Of course, in the tradition of dreams, once the slightly unreal situation has been set up, the dreamer becomes an impartial observer, rather than a participant. So picture, if you will, the following scene. A sizeable group of sizeable American tourists has gathered at King's Cross station in London, ready to try out the new “Streakerbus” service that has started up between there and London Stansted Airport, from where they hope to fly to the next destination on their European tour. The service was recommended by Conde Naste as a 'uniquely, quintessentially English ideas that is right up-to-date in its attitude to environmental responsibility, yet steeped in a thousand years of travel history'. The tourists are mildly perplexed to find that their guide is stark naked, but after four days in London, little surprises them any more except the price of a bagel.
As the journey progresses, of course, they find that it is an epic adventure with a surprise at every turn. London Stansted turns out, inexplicably, to be nowhere near London, England, and after six days they're still walking. Since they turned off Holloway Road they haven't seen another coffee shop, nor even a fish and chip shop, so they're feeling quite disorientated. The small, plastic wheels on their large suitcases proved not to be up to the journey, and the convoy has now been joined by a small army of Big Issue vendors and out-of-work civil servants, recruited from outside Stoke Newington Job Centre, who are now acting as sherpas, carrying the suitcases on trolleys fashioned from stolen bicycles. When the main roads become too dangerous for such a modern-day caravan, the group takes to some long-distance footpaths along the valley of the River Lee, much of which is quite marshy, and some of the suitcases, plus one particularly cumbersome tourist, have to be abandoned for the greater good.
All the while, their pasty-fleshed guide marches along cheerily, pausing occasionally to extract a pebble from between his toes.
Eventually, after being thrown out of a youth hostel in Bishop's Stortford for being unfeasibly dirty and smelly, the now bedraggled, but substantially lighter, party of American tourists arrives at Stansted Airport. They are five days late for their flight, one person is missing, their sartorial elegance leaves much to be desired, they are totally disorientated (or, their own words, disoriented) and so desperate for caffeine that they might cause an international incident at any moment. In fact, they have all this in common with the rest of the passengers at check-in (apart from the Saudi-Arabians, who are immaculate, but rarely seen at Stansted) though they have brought with them a tale of an experience they'll never forget, but which no-one else will believe.
No wonder it was recommended by Conde Naste.
AW.
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